


Mourn a Day

by VeteranKlaus



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [9]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Bad Things Happen Bingo, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, I’m very unsatisfied with the ending, M/M, but it’s 2am so like it’s done now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-12-21 11:03:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21073853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeteranKlaus/pseuds/VeteranKlaus
Summary: He has the date marked down in his mind. And on the fifty-first anniversary, although to him it hasn't been any more than a few months, Klaus finds the memory of his death is still as fresh as ever.Prompt: trying not to cry.





	Mourn a Day

He has the date marked in his mind, of course. He remembered reading the newspaper before they left town and got deployed to the front lines, remembers the days of travelling it took, the day they had to survive, and then the day. The day that wasn't supposed to happen, in which Klaus' hands became slick with his blood, and no medic got there in time.

Technically, it's been fifty-one years since he died. Technically, for Klaus, it's only been a few months.

The memory haunts him every day, of course. It lingers in the back of his mind, dancing in his peripheral, taunting him, mocking him, a shadow in his life that bursts forth when he closes his eyes, when he falls asleep. But when he opens his eyes that morning, it's as it happened only minutes ago. 

He feels heavy. Limbs full of lead, weights filling the marrow of his bones, and the smell of napalm lingers in his nostrils, hot and heavy in the back of his throat. His hands feel wet. He knows without checking the date that it's the same day. 

He peels his eyelids open to sunlight filtering in through the window. Not the hot sun of Vietnam peering in through the tent, glaring and heavy. Not to the bustle of soldiers pulling their boots on, cleaning their rifles, and not to Dave shaking him awake, not to bombs and gunshots.

He can hear them, though, in the distance of his memories. Vivid cracks of gunshots, flares of flamethrowers, his feet heavy with mud-clogged boots.

He has to force himself to sit up. His dog tags weigh heavy around his neck, pulling his shoulders down. He scrubs his hands (not bloody, but still stained with the ghost of his blood, and no amount of soap and scrubbing gets rid of it) down his face, rubs his eyes. He dresses, wearing his private jacket and running his fingers over the embroidery of it. 

He was never supposed to die. They had been there for months and while he had seen many people die, the possibility of Dave dying had never been one. They were supposed to serve and get out of there. It was supposed to be fine. 

Besides Diego and Ben, he had never gotten around to telling anyone what had happened. Five knew he time travelled, and that was it. Not when or where. Not as if they would be able to understand what he had gone through.

He trudged downstairs, hardly nodding his head in acknowledgement to Ben as he passed. Months after the not-apocalypse and they had all moved into the Academy together, and Klaus had to see them all as he sat down for breakfast. Grace slid some pancakes in front of him. They tasted like ration meals. 

Dave's mother used to make waffles for him and his siblings every morning. She hadn't wanted him to join the army. Feared he'd be killed. And she was right. He hoped she understood how well he had done, though. How brave and compassionate he had been even in the face of death and war. How he had welcomed each new recruit they passed, how he brightened the day a little. And how he had talked about her with all the love in his heart, laughed at how she had scolded him when he threw tantrums as a kid, how she had been so loving, so encouraging of them all. How he had hoped to come home one day during dinner, maybe, and walk right in, still in his uniform, and surprise her and his sisters. 

He never went home, though. Not alive, at least. They would have gotten the message of his death, and he could imagine it. At dinner, much like Dave imagined his return, and they wouldn't be expecting a visitor. His mother, growing elderly but stubbornly refusing to age like most might, would sigh and rise to her feet, wipe her hands clean and then hurry to the door, only to be greeted by a military officer tasked with dropping the news. But she could guess as she saw them; either he was coming home soon, or not at all. The officer would take his cap off, hold it above his heart, and look sincere as he told her that her son had died bravely protecting his country. 

One of them - herself or his sisters - would crumble to the ground, boneless, and wail, and the other would refuse it with teary eyes, and the home would never truly be the same home again. They might move. Too many memories living in that childhood home, walking past what once was Dave's childhood bedroom that he would never return to. 

Klaus didn't finish breakfast. He wanted to be alone, away from the prying eyes of his siblings watching him now, and so he slid out of the room silently, weaving past Allison as she entered, and instead settled down into an armchair opposite the lit fire in the living room. 

It looked like the flames that engulfed villages. Roaring, crackling, violent. Dave had told him to tie something around his mouth and nose whenever he saw the flamethrowers come out.

He didn't understand why he couldn't see him. He saw every ghost but the one he needed, and it was infuriating. Heart breaking. He was sober, dealt with the ghosts haunting these halls, following him everywhere he went, in hopes of seeing him just once. The only time he had seen him was in a photograph in a veteran's bar, or in his nightmares. They were never good dreams. Never the moments where, in the dark of night, alone, Dave would clasp a hand on his cheek and just hold his face close, run his thumbs over his cheeks, and gaze at him as if he had the universe behind his eyes. He liked to do that a lot of the times; just hold him. Run a hand through his hair, caress his cheek, gaze at him. His hand had fit perfectly into Klaus'. He never dreamt about the times they snuck into empty hallways and behind buildings when they weren't in action, when they had flushed cheeks and whiskey breath, and how they stole gentle kisses, something so passionate and intimate, more than anything Klaus had ever done before. It was never the way Dave sought him out when they regrouped, no dreams about how he taught him to stargaze, nothing about how he told prayers to Klaus, or how he laughed from his chest, how he twitched in his sleep, how he loved so thoroughly Klaus hadn't known how to deal with it initially.

Ben offered his presence as comfort, though he understood that talking was not something Klaus wanted. Klaus didn't want anything that wasn't Dave. He didn't want anyone to try and fake understanding what he felt. 

Luckily for himself, it seemed that no one was intent on watching him today. He escaped scrutiny, luckily avoiding his siblings interfering. He could close his eyes and feel the way his hands used to hold him, used to clap around the back of his neck as they pressed their foreheads together. His own hand ghosted over his own cheek like an imposter, as if he could imitate his touch. His eyes closed, avoiding the reality of the Academy standing around him as if he would be able to convince himself he wasn't there. 

It didn't work. He pretended it did.

He forgot it was his day to cook dinner. They alternated days and, ironically enough, today was Klaus' day. He had been planning what he would cook before hand - he liked to be prepared - and only realised it after he realised he forgot to eat lunch. He knew he couldn't hide away in his head for the day, and he knew Dave wouldn't want him to wallow in such hopelessness, too.

He forced himself into the kitchen. 

It was a recipe he had learned in Vietnam. He did miss the food of the little bar they used to frequent, and he could only hope to recreate it. 

"Something smells good," Allison commented, Luther trailing into the kitchen after her. Klaus grunted his acknowledgement. He was sure that Mrs Nguyễn would be ashamed of his poor recreation of her dish, but he thought he hadn't done too bad for his first time attempting it. It smelled good, mouth watering, and he had watched it cook with a hawk's eye. 

"Something new?" Diego mused. 

"Better than what I was expecting," Five commented as he appeared with a flash. 

Mrs Nguyễn's dish would obliterate his, though he supposed, with some remorse, that they'd never have the honour of meeting the little old lady who had taught him the dish. She had been motherly to them, sweet and firm - only one soldier, a young, cocky kid, tried to jab at her, and everyone else had jumped to stand up for her and put the kid down a peg or twelve. The first time he had tried the dish he had been blown away by how good it was. 

"What is it?" Luther asked.

"Vietnamese," murmured Klaus, dishing the plates out. "Home recipe." 

Diego eyed him. Klaus ignored him. He sat down in his own seat after handing out the dishes, settling in front of the plate and eying it.

"I didn't know you liked Vietnamese food," Vanya commented gently, offering conversation.

Klaus learned many things in Vietnam. He picked up some of the language and a multitude of recipes. This, he realised with a punch to the gut, was Dave's favourite. "Yeah," he croaked. 

They fell quiet as they ate, though the tell-tale sounds of cutlery on dishes and surprised little sounds indicated their positive opinions on the food, of which Klaus was glad for. He was glad they liked it, but he couldn't bring himself to eat it.

Why would Dave not come to him? Had his ghost been lost somewhere in time, what with the complications of time travel? He would have had to wait years for Klaus to be born, let alone for Klaus to go to Vietnam and return. Why could he not see him? Why hadn't the time machine sent him back a few days but rather forced him back home? He would give anything to have Dave sitting beside him, or for himself to be sitting in a small bar in Vietnam, 1968, eating the real version of this meal with Dave eating beside him. He would give anything, but it seemed as if nothing would ever be enough.

His vision blurred with tears. His hands felt wet, sticky with blood, and where had the medic been when he needed them? His teeth ground together, painfully so. He wouldn't cry. He wouldn't. Not over dinner in front of his siblings, not when Klaus wasn't supposed to know Dave in the first place, when his family were the ones who had lost a son and a brother.

"Klaus?" 

His shoulders shook. Dave used to draw circles on the nape of his neck, fingertips tickling the short strands of hair there. He used to know what words to say when he needed to hear them. He used to be able to fix everything with a few words and reassuring touches. He used to kiss tenderly and softly, used to see everything in an optimistic light.

He wasn't here. He had tried for months and he would never see him again. He stood up abruptly, cutlery clattering off the table and onto the floor as he stormed out and upstairs, wiping furiously at his eyes as tears flooded out. He sat on the edge of his bed, his lip trembling and shoulders shaking, thumbs constantly swiping beneath his eyes. His breath stuttered in his throat, painfully tight, his lungs aching. 

There was a knock at his door before it slowly creaked open. "Klaus?" Diego called gently. "Are you okay?"

"Leave me alone," he croaked in response, the words near silent with the lack of air he could put behind speaking them.

"What's wrong, Klaus? You've been quiet all day," stated Diego, and he seemed to hold back a sarcastic comment.

A sob threatened to force its way out his throat. The bed dipped as Diego sat next to him. "Speak to me, Klaus."

Klaus' nails dug into the back of his hands. "He... he died today," he whispered, staring absently at the wall opposite him. He felt a tear fall when he blinked.

"Who did? Is it..."

"Dave," Klaus nodded, squeezing his eyes shut. "Vietnam. I - I can't see him. I'm trying, but I - I... just can't." He drooped his head, hanging low between his shoulders. 

"I'm sorry," Diego offered, and he reached out to squeeze his shoulder. Klaus shook his head, curling a hand around the dog tags permanent around his neck. Diego hesitated, silent for a moment, and then he reached out to wrap an arm around him and pulled him close. Klaus fell against his side and the action felt like a trigger, forcing the painful sobs building in his chest out, tumbling one after the other past his lips, quick and heavy. 

Klaus didn't know why he couldn't see Dave, even after all this time. He didn't. But Dave had never given up on him, and he didn't plan on giving up on him either. 


End file.
